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The Cooper Point Journal (January 23, 2019)
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23 January 2019
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3
COMMUNITY CONVOS
INTERSEX VOICES AT
EVERGREEN
The Evergreen State College Newspaper Since 1971| January 23,2019
CALLA MAV
ARTIST INTERVIEW
BY BRITTANYANA PIERRO
13
the cooper point journal
POOL CLOSING
NO OPEN OR LAP
SWIMMING COME FEB.
12
@yourCPJ
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 1
The Cooper Point Journal
STAFF
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2 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Point journal archives
Mod resident “makes use of space” circa. 1985. Courtesy of the Cooper
HOW WE WORK
The Cooper Point Journal is produced by students at Evergreen State College, with funding from student
fees and advertising from local businesses. The Journal is published for free every other Wednesday during the
school year and distributed throughout the Olympia area.
Our content is also available online at www.cooperpointjournal.com.
Our mission is to provide an outlet for student voices, and to inform and entertain the Evergreen community
and the Olympia-area more broadly, as well as to provide a platform for students to learn about operating a
news publication.
Our office is located on the third floor of the Campus Activities Building (CAB) at Evergreen State College
in room 332 and we have open student meetings from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. every Wednesday. Come early if you’d
like to chat with the editor!
WORK FOR US
We accept submissions from any student at Evergreen State College, and also from former students, faculty,
and staff. We also hire some students onto our staff, who write articles for each issue and receive a learning
stipend.
Have an exciting news topic? Know about some weird community happening? Enjoy that new hardcore
band? Come talk to us and write about it.
We will also consider submissions from non-Evergreen people, particularly if they have special knowledge on
the topic. We prioritize current student content first, followed by former students, faculty and staff, and then
general community submissions. Within that, we prioritize content related to Evergreen first, followed by
Olympia, the state of Washington, the Pacific Northwest, etc.
To submit an article, reach us at cooperpointjournal@gmail.com.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
We want to hear from you! If you have an opinion on anything we’ve reported in the paper, or goings-on in
Olympia or at Evergreen, drop us a line with a paragraph or two (100 - 300 words) for us to publish in the
paper. Make sure to include your full name, and your relationship to the college—are you a student, staff,
graduate, community member, etc. We reserve the right to edit anything submitted to us before publishing,
but we’ll do our best to consult with you about any major changes.
News
NO NAZIS.
PATRIOT FRONT
LITTERS PUGET SOUND
MAYOR SELBY,YWCA, SURJ., AND OTHERS TALK BACK
By MARTA TAHJA-SYRETT
During the first week of
2019, white nationalist group
Patriot Front, littered the
Puget Sound with flyers.
Olympia mayor Sheryl
Selby was one of the South
Capitol residents who received a leaflet outside their
home, and she describes her
initial reaction to the incident
as one filled with both dismay
and hope. “It took me kind
of back to when Trump first
got elected and our community really rose up and decided to just make some really
powerful statements around
compassion and diversity and
against hate,” Selby said.
The flyers referenced a
right-wing slogan, “Better
Dead than Red,” below an
image of an arrow shooting
through a sickle and hammer.
As described in reporting by
the Olympian, these flyers
were secured in plastic bags
and weighed down by rocks,
awaiting discovery outside of
residential homes.
The
Anti-Defamation
League describes Patriot
Front as “American fascists
or American nationalists who
are focused on preserving
America’s identity as a European-American identity. The
leaflets were spread throughout Olympia’s South Capitol
neighborhood and in Tacoma,
Bellevue, Edmonds, Redmond, Kirkland, and West
Seattle.
In response to the campaign, the YWCA of Olympia posted a statement on their
Facebook page condemning
Patriot Front’s actions. Also in
response, Olympia’s Showing
Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)
organized an event they titled
“Olympia Says NO to White
Nationalism,” a canvassing
event aimed at opening up
the dialogue surrounding local acts of bigotry.
The Tacoma City Council
responded to the leaflet distribution in Resolution No.
40206.“The City Council
shares the concerns community members have raised in
the aftermath of this disturbing incident, and WHEREAS the City is an inclusive,
international city that is far
tougher than those who
would seek to divide it.”
South Capitol is a unique
district of Olympia due to the
fact that it has strong ties to
the political sector of Washington. After reviewing public records The Seattle Times
found that almost one-third
of all houses in this area belong to lobbyists, who work to
impact legislative decisions.
The neighborhood’s voting
trends may provide additional information in connection
with their selection for flyer
distribution, as the district
(Legislative District 22) is
known for its association with
the Democratic party. During
the 2018 midterms, the majority (nearly 70% in both
races) of the district voted for
Democrats. West Seattle districts—another location targeted by Patriot Front during
the same time period—are
also overwhelmingly democratic. 84.74% of Congressional District 7 voted for a
democratic U.S. representative, while the race for senator
in Legislative District 34 was
composed solely of democratic candidates.
The mayor of Olympia,
Cheryl Selby, agrees with the
idea that South Capitol was
politically targeted.
Selby said Olympia’s progressive image has an effect on
the city’s susceptibility to incidents such as the flyers.“We’re
known for all of this compassion for folks that have
different beliefs and different
orientations, and I mean it’s
one of the nice things about
this community but I think it
makes us a target, too sometimes.”
Patriot Front’s presence in
Olympia is certainly not the
first time hate groups have
visited the city and surrounding areas. Selby recalls when
the Westboro Baptist Church
protested at Olympia High
School in 2012, to showcase their
opposition to the proposal of
marriage equality. A more recent
example of hate groups in Thurston county occurred in March
2018 when an unknown arsonist
burned Jehovah’s Witness Kingdom Halls in Tumwater and
Olympia. “The arsons that have
happened at those facilities are
people trying to instill fear,” said
Mayor Selby.
Selby voiced concerns regarding the federal government’s
lack of hate group monitoring
in recent years. She recalled how
the Oklahoma City bombing
elevated the stature of white supremacists groups and other hate
groups within the United States.
The government’s waning hate
group investigation is addressed
within a ProPublica article from
2017 which states that “some
government insiders say the intelligence services and federal law
enforcement agencies have largely shifted their attention away
from far-right threats in the years
since 9/11, choosing instead to
focus heavily on Islamic radicals,
who are seen by some to pose a
more immediate danger.”
Selby argues that the proper
response is to not “engage with
the rhetoric that they’re espousing.”
“Keep the mindfulness around
what they’re doing because you
run the risk if you don’t pay attention that you’ll miss them becoming more powerful in your
community,” said Selby.
In an article published by
the Harvard Gazette, Associate Professor Bart Bonikowski
said, “With white supremacists
and other extremist movements,
much like with radical terrorism
of all forms, one of the primary
objectives is media attention.” He
says that this causes a dilemma, as
ignoring these groups completely
in the media just leads to a lack of
documentation and consequence.
As Selby said, “Seek out ways to
engage with more diverse parts
of our community, to build those
relationships, put that energy
there.”
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 3
News
Evergreen State College Pool. MASON SOTO.
ALL OPEN AND
LAP SWIMMING
SUSPENDED
UNTIL MID 2020
Evergreen Administration
will suspend all open and lap
swimming until early 2020.
The pool website provides
more details about the decision, saying, “Current resources, both fiscal and personnel, informed the difficult
decision to suspend all open
and lap swimming for the
next twelve months.” Summer camps, new or current
contracted rentals, and community partnerships are unaffected by this decision.
In a Greener Commons
post from Jan. 10, Recreation
and Aquatics Coordinator
Samuel Hensold “acknowledges the interest and concern regarding the recent
announcement about the Evergreen pool” while providing
limited information. Stephen
Nicholson, a former student
lifeguard for the aquatics
program, gave some insights
as to the process from an employee perspective and how
the changes affected him. “I
had a pretty good idea it was
coming, we [the lifeguards]
received a text at the beginning of winter quarter with
our schedule(s) and told
administration was still de-
bating the final hours of the
facility.”
Some community members worry that the closure
puts at risk the health and
well-being of students. Senior at Evergreen, Drake
Eastman is concerned about
the school limiting access to
one of the only indoor pools
available in the area. “It’s not
possible to swim outside at
this time of the year, it’s cold
and could be dangerous if
someone attempted it,” they
said. Indeed, swimming outdoors is a risky choice, no
matter the season. Rarely does
the temperature in Washington’s waters rise above 50
degrees. “That’s what makes
our waters dangerous. It’s
not something you can tread
water in for hours,” noted
Derek VanDyke, Education
Coordinator for the state
Parks and Recreation Commission’s recreational-boating program. “Bottom line is,
it’s cold,” he said.
“This is an agenda item on
the January 23rd GSU Assembly Meeting and we hope
to see broad student participation to help guide the future of sustainable aquatics at
4 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
By JOSHUA WILLIAMS
Evergreen over the next 12
months and beyond,” Hensold stated in his post. He
finished the post with a link
to the pool website, and a reminder that “open swimming
is funded with Student Services and Activities (S&A)
fee money, which is managed
by the nine-student S&A
board and cannot be used for
other campus costs.”
On Jan. 11, a follow-up
text was sent out to pool
staff, saying the process of
deciding new hours was being sped up, along with a call
for an “emergency meeting”
scheduled for 5 p.m. Sunday evening. The stated purpose of this meeting was to
“discuss logistics and to hear
your perspective.” The text
ended, “don’t panic, I will triple up or quadruple up any of
the shifts available.”
Nicholson said the next
day all the lifeguards were
sent an email by Ray Finn,
Assistant Director of the
Costantino Recreation Center. The email provided the
new “week one” hours of
operation, informed the employees that schedules would
adjust accordingly, and talk-
ed about some “significant
changes planned for the pool”
which would impact aquatics
hours for the remainder of
the quarter.
In the email, Finn also
pushes the aforementioned
“emergency meeting” until
the evening of the ninth. He
informed the lifeguards, “It
will be an opportunity for
you to share concerns and
provide feedback.” The email
also informed the lifeguards
that the final pool schedule
would be going out to the
Evergreen community and
recreation center members by
the end of their meeting day.
“It was chaos, nobody
showed up to work, we didn’t
know who was supposed
to be working when,” said
Nicholson. “I had to turn
away a regular, because we
didn’t have sufficient staffing. It really sucked because
she had already paid and it
was her birthday and I had
to tell her to get out.” Other
lifeguards said that they were
kept in the dark about this
decision and that it was made
without their input.
The Student Affairs Mission Statement says that Stu-
dent Affairs Office responsibilities include ensuring “that
students have input into decisions that directly affect
their lives,” and community
members feel that this duty
was not carried out.
“For an institution that
preaches transparency and
equal power between students and employees, them
making this decision without
any input from us is incredibly disrespectful and frankly
a bit dehumanizing — to put
this [job loss] on us at the beginning of the quarter,” said
Nicholson.
Lack of student consultation leading up to the pool
closure may set a precedent
for revoking services, even
for which fees have already
been paid. Last year, the Services and Activities budget
was raised 2.2%, and a 4%
increase was approved by
the Board of Trustees for the
2018-2019 year. Each student is paying $649 towards
the Services and Activities
fund this year.
News
RIFLE ROUND UP!
JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS
OVER...
By FOREST HUNT
President Bridges said the needs assessment package
for Police Services, including rifles, crowd control
equipment, and two new officers is “essential to the
mission of the college.”
Funding for two new officers requested, state provided
funding for one. That leaves Police Services with nine
total officers, the college intends to use funding to hire
tenth.
Funding for crowd control equipment was denied by
the state, and now it is unclear if it has been or will be
purchased.
The Journal has obtained and verified remarks from
John Carmichael that delve more into why rifles were
purchased.
Who, What, When, and
How
Bridges Seeks State Funding
For Rifles and Crowd Control
“If they both opt for department-issued rifles, we’ll need
to buy one more,” said John
Carmichael in an email just before the Journal went to press,
almost as an afterthought. He
was talking about about two officers at Police Services finishing their training and preparing
to be armed with AR-15 rifles.
Police Services now has ten officers (if you’re keeping up on
the math: that’s up from nine,
but we’ll get to that). Seven
rifles were purchased, and one
officer brings a personal rifle in
to work; that leaves two officers
without rifles. Why does each
officer need their own rifle?
Carmichael claims that Evergreen police “can’t share weapons,” because they are only certified to use specific guns.
But rifles were always only
one part of a larger story.
In August 2017 when former Director of Police Services
Stacy Brown requested rifles
for police, it wasn’t all she was
requesting. The rifle request
was part of a larger package of
equipment for Police Services
labeled a “needs assessment”
that she projected would cost
the college $393,000 annually.
With some caveats, President George Bridges approved most of the requests in
the needs assessment package,
including two new full-time
equivalent police officers, crowd
control equipment, purchase
of a subscription to a policy
manual updater called Lexipol,
more cameras around campus,
new door-locking systems and
alarms, modernized radio infrastructure, transition of vehicles to leases, and new laptops.
Less than two months later,
in October 2017, Bridges used
a supplemental budget request
to seek increased funding for
Police Services to fulfill the
needs assessment, including
funding for two additional officers, rifles, and crowd control.
The body cameras
“were purchased, but
they are not of really
good quality,” so they
are not being used,
said Joseph.
In a signed letter headlining
the document, Bridges stated
that the items in the request
were prioritized because they
were the “most essential to the
mission of the college.”
A supplemental budget request is “an opportunity to
make technical corrections” and
respond to “emerging issues”
that were not covered by the
prior years budget, explained
Holly Joseph, Evergreen’s
Chief Budget Officer.
Somewhat ominously, the
budget request cited “anticipated activity on-campus including from outside groups”
as justification for seeking to
purchase crowd control equipment, going on to state that
Evergreen is currently unable
to “de-escalate a situation,”
without offering specifics.
In fact, police use of crowd
control equipment has escalated situations on the Evergreen
Olympia campus in the past.
After a 2008 Dead Prez concert in the Campus Recreation
Center, Evergreen police called
in Olympia Police Department
officers who attacked a crowd
of peaceful Evergreen protesters with batons and pepper
spray. Subsequently, the assembled students infamously
flipped a police car.
The budget request did not
specify what kind of crowd
control equipment the college would buy, beyond that it
would be “approved.” Brown
gave “OC 10 pepper spray and
PepperBalls” as examples in the
initial needs assessment.
PepperBalls are less-thanlethal weapons that shoot fragmenting projectiles containing
a substance similar to pepper
spray.
Though
advertised
as
non-lethal, the projectile weapons have been known to kill
and cause grievous bodily harm.
In 2004, police killed a 21 year
old Emerson student in Boston
using PepperBalls in a crowd
control situation. Also in 2004,
UC Davis Police hit a student
in the eye with a PepperBall,
causing him to lose an athletic scholarship and drop out of
school, according to the LA
Times. Locally a Cooper Point
Journal reporter was injured by
a PepperBall while covering
a protest late last year, though
they were not seriously harmed.
In total, Bridges requested an additional $400,000 per
year through 2021 for Police
Services to fund the needs assessment package, including
$17,000 for goods and services,
$25,000 for travel, approximately $340,000 for personnel,
and a one time $22,000 labeled
“capital outlays” likely intended
to fund rifles and crowd control.
State Rebuffs Needs Assessment, College Forges
Ahead Anyway
All of the above was just
what President Bridges requested. What did the state
legislature actually fund? According to the conference report approving the supplemental budget request, not much.
In that March 2018 bill they
provided $149,000 for one additional police officer and one
part time administrative assistant. Both have now been hired.
Joseph Gallardo was hired as a
new police officer Aug.13, 2018
and has just completed training.
Marly Holbrook was hired as
an administrative assistant for
police services Nov. 19, 2018.
Police Services had funding
for nine officers at the end of
2017. Bridges sought funding
for two new officers to bring
the total up to eleven. With
one additional officer funded
through the budget request,
that brings Police Services up
to funding for ten officers.
There were briefly ten officers to match that funding,
until one quit at the end of
2018, bringing Police Services
back down to nine actual officers. “We will fill that vacant
position,” said Carmichael,
underlining the college’s commitment to ten officers. He
clarified that the college had
dropped its goal to bring Police
Services up to eleven officers
and would not seek funding for
additional police personnel in
the 2019-21 biennial budget.
Not hiring an eleventh police officer was a key demand of
the Industrial Workers of the
World South Sound General
Education Union, which has
also demanded Evergreen hire
two new professors, one in the
arts and one in political economy.
The college did, however,
forge ahead in search of money for all the other equipment
requested by Police Services
in spite of not receiving state
funds to do so.
Joseph said that, with the
college’s current financial situation, any new initiatives with
ongoing funding in one area
of the budget would inevitably
lead to budget reductions elsewhere.
In a section of the supplemental budget request seeking
to clarify what Evergreen would
do if the state did not fund the
needs assessment package for
police, the document stated the
school “could only fund these
needs by eliminating needed
staff positions necessary to student success.”
Several items from the needs
assessment were purchased before the supplemental budget
request process completed in
March 2018.
That includes two infrared
body cameras purchased via
express mail ($45.29) from
“stuntcams.com” in September
2017 for a total of $425, likely
(CONT. ON NEXT PAGE)
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 5
News
using Police Services annual
goods and services budget.
The body cameras “were purchased, but they are not of really good quality,” so they are not
being used, said Joseph.
Rifles and bullets were purchased November of 2017 for
just under $11,000. How they
were paid for is still unclear.
Chief Budget Officer Holly
Joseph was unable to comment
before press time.
Other items from the needs
assessment were purchased after the state refused to pay for
them.
According to Joseph, the
college entered into a contract
with Lexipol in Fall Quarter
using “Carry Forward Funding.” The private company will
be updating and revising Police
Services Standard Operating
Procedures. The cost to the college is still unclear.
Carry Forward Funding
consists mainly of “unspent salary and benefits” from the previous year said Joseph.
“Have we as a college
community become so
socialized into a fearbased media of gun
violence that students
and faculty are simply
willing to trust authoritarianism over
transparent public
decision-making?”
It is unclear if crowd control
equipment has been purchased.
A source in police services
claims that Evergreen police
don’t have any. Bridges deferred
comment to Evergreen’s public
relations officer, Allison Anderson, who neither confirms
nor denies that crowd control
equipment has been or will be
purchased. An ongoing public
records request has not yet uncovered any crowd control specific purchases beyond a baton
for a new officer. The request
remains open.
New door locks and alarms,
additional campus cameras, vehicle leases, and modernized
radio infrastructure have not
yet been funded by the college.
The radio infrastructure would
need to go through a more
complex process via the Capital Budget, according to Joseph.
Given Bridges’ assertion in his
supplemental budget request
that these items are “essential to
the college,” it’s safe to assume
these are ongoing priorities for
the administration.
Reached for comment with
questions regarding the needs
assessment package, Bridges
again deferred to his Public
Relations Officer, who offered
no answers before press time.
Police Budget
Questions about police purchases often raise the issue of
how Evergreen police are funded. Let’s start with some clarity
on one important point: Police
Services is funded by the college like any other department.
Its funding comes from the
Operating Budget.
According to the college’s
“Budget 101” document, the
Operating Budget funding
breakdown is approximately
39% state appropriations and
61% tuition. “The state appropriation and tuition get merged
together all into one” before
they are distributed to departments, said Chief Budget Officer Joseph.
Police Services accounted
for 2.15% of the Operating
Budget in 2013-15 at a total of
$2,449,923. With an additional
officer and administrative positions, this will now likely be a
couple hundred thousand dollars higher.
Why?
Bridges and College Administration Stonewall, the
Journal Persists Anyways
None of this information
has come easy.
Three interviews with senior
administration, one in-person interaction with Bridges,
countless email threads, persistent phone calls and conversations, and consistent attempts
to reach all levels of leadership
for comment on this decision
have yielded a fair amount of
reluctant responses, but few details.
In spite of this, the Journal
has been able to find many
answers to most of the major questions surrounding the
needs assessment package and
rifle decision through public records requests and the reporting process.
But the most important
question still remains: Why
was this decision made? After
almost five months of asking,
no one in senior administration
has chosen to answer.
Both Carmichael and the
Vice President of Public Relations Sandra Kaiser have
emphasized that President
Bridges made the decision to
purchase rifles and other police
6 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
equipment, and that only he
can speak to his rationale for
doing so.
However, each time Bridges
was reached for comment, he
directed me to his Public Relations representative, who would
once again confirm Bridges
made the decision, but clarify I
would need to speak to Bridges
to find out why. Thus creating
a never-ending circle of silence.
In a recent interview, Public Relations Officer Anderson insisted that the detailed
questions I had been asking her
since September couldn’t be
addressed because she was not
“prepared.” She insisted they be
discussed at a future meeting.
When I asked her to schedule
that meeting she said with a
smirk, “I can’t promise you anything.” It wasn’t the first time.
The end result of all this runaround is that senior administration have not even provided
any basic arguments for why
the rifle decision was made,
starving the community of any
robust debate and dialogue.
But debate can’t be suppressed forever.
The Journal has obtained
and verified direct remarks concerning the rifle decision spoken by Carmichael in a private
meeting. While Carmichael is
now in charge of overseeing the
police on campus, he was not in
that position when Bridges authorized the purchase of rifles,
and his remarks do not give
direct insight into the decision.
They do, however, finally offer
the closest the community has
gotten to a good faith dialog
from senior leadership, even if
it was not publicly given.
At first in an interview about
the obtained remarks Carmichael said, “I acknowledge the
general accuracy of what you’re
saying,” but later wrote in an
email he does not recognize ”a
few of the statements,” likely
referring to several remarks he
sought to clarify in the interview which do not appear here,
but may be included in future
reporting.
All of these remarks are direct quotes and have thus been
verified with the highest degree
of certainty.
State Interest in Police Rifles At Evergreen
In the obtained remarks
Carmichael makes the argument that the rifle decision was
“a forgone conclusion” and the
“legislative interest in it just
determined it.” There had certainly been rhetorical pressure
from the Republican minority
in the legislature. In June 2017,
a couple months before the rifles were approved by Bridges,
he was grilled by a Republican
State Senator during a working session over the Evergreen
communities decision not to
arm its police with rifles. “We’re
looking into that,” Bridges said
at the time.
But did the legislature force
Evergreen into this decision?
That idea can be quickly dismissed.
The rifle decision was
“a forgone conclusion”
and the “legislative
interest in it just determined it.”
“In my experience, I have
not seen where the legislature
has a particular initiative that
they’re like: and you will do
this,” said Chief Budget Officer
Holly Joseph. Usually, she says,
“they really are going to work
off of what we have asked for.”
Regarding the supplemental
budget request to fund the police equipment and personnel
Joseph said, “Did they direct us
what to ask for? No, not that
I’m aware of. That would be
awkward.”
Besides, given that Police
Services had been pushing to
get rifles for over ten years, the
internal motive for the decision
is clear. If the request by police,
approval by Bridges, and strong
language in the supplemental
budget request deeming rifles
“essential to the mission of the
college” isn’t enough to confirm
that police services and Bridges are the prime movers in this
decision, then the fact the state
declined to fund the rifles certainly is.
New Active Shooter
Procedure
Carmichael also pointed
out how the procedures for an
active shooter situation have
changed. Previously Evergreen
Police Services officers were not
supposed to go into a building
in pursuit of an active shooter.
Instead they had to wait for the
Thurston County Sheriff ’s Office — which Police Services is
a part of — to arrive and form
a team. Carmichael said since
Evergreen police would have
to wait for backup from the
Sheriff ’s Office, who had rifles
anyways, administration decided in 2009 that rifles weren’t
necessary.
“Since that time, the protocol has changed a lot,” Carmichael continued. Now officers
can directly engage an active
shooter individually or in pairs
before a backup team arrives.
Carmichael
emphasized
“there is no guarantee” rifles
or more officers could stop an
active shooter, but also said, “If
we’re going to ask them to do
that,” then “I think a rifle is a
reasonable thing for them to
ask us for.”
The Thurston County Sheriff ’s Office Policy Manual confirms officers are now empowered to decide themselves if
they will advance on the scene,
although it also states, “It is
highly recommended that any
advance on a suspect be made
in teams of two or more.”
Sgt. Dave Odegaard of the
Thurston County Sheriff ’s
said he agreed with the policy
change and thought it could
potentially save lives, but it
would only be appropriate if
more then one officer responded, and only in a situation
where backup is “more than
ten minutes away.” He clarified that the Thurston County
Sheriff ’s on its own should be
able to respond to an active
shooter situation on the Olympia Evergreen campus in “8 or
9 minutes.”
Stacy Brown stated Police
Services did not have enough
officers “to ensure two on duty
at all times” in her initial 2017
needs assessment that included the rifle request. It’s unclear
how much one additional officer will change that.
Thus, even with this policy
change, it is unlikely that Evergreen Police will be responding
to an active shooter before other officers with rifles arrive on
campus.
Professor Emeritus and
former member of the Police
Community Review Board
Michael Vavrus pointed out
that even if the active shooter procedures have changed, it
wasn’t what most of the community was focused on when
they rejected the rifle proposal
in 2009.
“The strong sentiment on
campus 10 years ago was opposition to the militarized
arming of campus police, not
on some technicality about entering classrooms,” said Vavrus.
“Have we as a college community become so socialized into
a fear-based media of gun violence that students and faculty
are simply willing to trust authoritarianism over transparent
(CONT. ON NEXT PAGE)
public decision-making?” He
pointed out that the May 2017
gun threat was from a man in
New Jersey and no gun violence
ever transpired on campus.
student safety, but without any
student input,” Knutson said.
Pattern of Racist Actions At
Evergreen Police Services
Reporting by the Journal has
revealed a long term pattern of
“Overreaction to Fearsome racist actions perpetrated by
Risks”
Police Services in past years,
In October, Carmichael did bringing into question the idea
vaguely suggest that the 2017 that arming Evergreen police
gun threat by New Jersey res- with rifles would make everyident Robert Kerekes was one one on campus safer and sugpotential reason for arming gesting the opposite could be
Police Services with rifles, ref- true.
erencing “outside threats the
There have been several high
college was receiving.”
profile cases, including the arIt’s safe to say that the tu- bitrary overnight detainment
multuous events of Spring and interrogation of two black
2017, along with the projection students in 2017, and the arrest
of Evergreen onto the national of a black student who broke
stage and into the crosshairs of up a fight during the 2008
the far right has changed the Dead Prez concert, which inipsychology of the campus, both tiated the peaceful protest that
in administration and among Olympia Police Officers later
students, staff, and faculty.
attacked with batons and pepNora Marie Mahto Knut- per spray.
son, one of the coordinators
Nicolas Jeffreys said campus
of the student group Coalition police treat black students at
Against Sexual Violence, said Evergreen differently. He said
that the argument police need “they treat them badly, don’t
rifles to protect campus from talk to them,” continuing “I
an active shooter is “based on worry about other people who
fear.”
look like me being murdered by
As far as finding a reason campus police because the ARwhy rifles were purchased, fear 15s, it’s a hair trigger.”
is not a bad contender. A HarKnutson added that it’s danvard Kennedy School of Gov- gerous to forget the history and
ernment study called “Over- reality of police in the United
reaction to Fearsome Risks” States. “Police get away with
argues that communities and murder in this country,” she
governments often “exagger- said.
ate the benefit of preventative,
Nearby Portland State Unirisk-reducing” measures when versity Police shot and killed
responding to high conse- 45 year old Navy veteran Jaquence, low probability events, son Washington in July 2018,
like an active shooter.
a black student attending that
Writing for the Washington university. The officers who shot
Post in 2018 about fear of active Washington were not charged
shooters in high schools, Har- with any crime, according to
vard Instructor David Ropeik Oregon Public Broadcasting.
said “the statistical likelihood of The school’s Student Union is
any given public school student now calling for the disarming
being killed by a gun, in school, of their campus police, accordon any given day since 1999 ing to Inside Higher Ed.
was roughly 1 in 614,000,000.”
In the obtained remarks
In 2009 former Evergreen Ac- Carmichael admitted “some
ademic Budget Dean Ken Tub- people feel less safe around pobutt calculated the probability lice” and “that comes from lived
of an active shooter event “on a experience.” He also said in a
specific campus” is “once in ev- recent interview meant to clarery 3,140 years.”
ify his remarks that Evergreen
“If terrible outcomes are easy students “other” campus police
to visualize, large-scale chang- and campus police “other” stues in thought and behavior are dents, before quickly qualifyto be expected, even if the sta- ing that that “can” happen, but
tistical risks are dramatically” doesn’t necessarily.
low, the “Fearsome Risks” study
Knutson responded that
concludes.
Carmichael “is aware of the
Knutson expressed empathy institutional problems with the
for those who support the rifle police, but unwilling to incordecision on campus, but points porate this awareness into his
out that no one’s opinion was decision making.”
actually ever considered. “This
decision to increase the weap- Why Did Bridges Purchase
ons that police have on cam- Rifles? We May Never Know.
pus was made in the name of
In the aftermath of having
to confront his candid remarks
publicly, John Carmichael has
now begun to actively attempt
to answer questions surrounding police services, including
on personal rifles, and police
hiring and training. But it still
does not get us any closer to
understanding why these decisions are being made. It is clear
that only one person can speak
to that.
Bridges made the decision,
and only Bridges knows why
he made it. If his past reticence
to speak on this issue is any indication, we may never know
specifically what was going on
in his head. Presumably it was
some combination of deference
to the state legislature, changes
in active shooter policy, and the
residual fear from the tumult
of Spring 2017, but unless he
chooses to speak up we can not
know for sure.
What we do know for sure is
it was not Bridges’ idea to begin
with. Police Services first formally requested rifles in 2009
before being rebuffed by the
administration and wider campus community, and has been
pushing consistently ever since.
Police at Evergreen have
been slowly accumulating more
arms since arriving on campus
in the mid 90’s. Starting with
handguns restricted to day use
and secured in vehicles, then
on the officers person, and then
24-7 use on the officers person.
Today, Police Services has
AR-15 rifles, and their Standard Operating Procedures allow them to carry any amount
of additional concealed arms
on their person. What comes
next? We know crowd control
equipment is likely on its way
if it’s not here already. Only
the future will tell, although it
may only tell after the fact, and
might not have many details to
offer.
MORE INFORMATION
To see the documents referenced in this report, refer to the
online version at cooperpointjournal.com
For background information, read the Journals previous coverage online or in print:
“Police Services have AR15 Rifles”
“Rifles On Campus: Community Responds”
“Rifles On Campus: A
History”
News
WOBBLIES DEMAND
DEMOCRACY
AT EVERGREEN
By DANIEL VOGEL
The South Sound General
Education Union has a much
broader vision for Evergreen
than their recent demands
for two new professors and
a freeze on police services
hires.
They want nothing more
than to run the school itself.
“We’ll have something
kind of like an assembly,”
said self-described “rankand-file member” Elizabeth
Flynn. “Of course we’ll have
our protocols in place. Maybe something similar to Robert’s Rules of Order.”
(GSU meetings currently follow Robert’s Rules, a
19th-century guidebook on
parliamentary procedure.)
According to an Olympia
International Workers of the
World (IWW) newsletter,
the group was founded last
summer, “on the rooftop of
a “leftist” shop called Kinoki
in San Cristobal de las Casas,
Chiapas, Mexico.” Their firstdraft “points of unity” included a desire that “schools
be run democratically by the
people who attend and work
in them (students, faculty,
and staff ).”
Representatives from the
union -- who, like the broader IWW, have embraced the
moniker ‘wobblies’ -- met
with admin at the end of last
year, including Vice President for Finance and Operations John Carmichael. Admin argued that the union
doesn’t represent the student
body.
“We recognize the Geoduck Student Union as the
clearinghouse for student
voices on campus,” said Evergreen spokesperson Allison
Anderson, after the wobblies
launched a phone-in campaign.
The Olympia IWW criticized the administration’s
response as an attempt to
divert public attention. “They
wish to co-opt the union into
avenues they can more easily control such as the faculty
union and the student union.”
Although students have
the opportunity to vote on
GSU referendums directly or
elect representatives, the referendums themselves have no
binding power on the college
and must be ratified by the
Board of Trustees before they
become college policy. For
example, in 2010 students
voted for the college to boycott a slew of Israeli-aligned
companies, which the board
rejected. The resolution is still
technically GSU policy.
However, as the wobbly press release argues, the
Flaming Eggplant “was not
won by the board of trustees decision to finally listen to one of the Geoduck
Student Union’s toothless
referendums, rather it was
the organization of students
providing, from the get go,
an alternative food service
from Aramark.” The Flaming
Eggplant posted a picture of
a wobbly flyer to their Instagram story on Jan. 16, prior
to their Jan. 17 picket outside
the library.
Similarly, Flynn said that
“the equity room, for example, doesn’t exist because of
the GSU, it exists because of
a mass movement that happened in 2017.”
At their Jan. 17 picket
union members and friends
marched back and forth in
front of the library, holding signs outlining their demands. The rally was more
sparsely attended than their
fall rally, which was the largest on-campus rally since the
spring 2017 uprisings.
“The picket was organized to spread information
about our demands and to
demonstrate to the Evergreen administration that the
working class on the Olympia campus, and in the community, are not happy with
the current direction of the
school,” stated the union.
“We will continue action until the demands are met.”
“The GSU has no teeth,”
said Flynn. “For now, we’ll
continue doing actions to get
our demands fulfilled.”
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 7
Art
“I just like to draw
babes.” Mav said “I frequent bikini baristas and
I used to draw a bunch
of my favorite girls...
They’re always really
happy to see, not-oldbusiness-dudes.”
artist interview by
Brittanyana Pierro
on page 13
Calla Mav
AKA
BERRY KID
8 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
Art
“I made a drawing of her and she did a look based off of my art, which was very meta.”
(Photo featured top above)
“I have a very specific kind of internet fame, which is in
the ‘cute art’
community,
so-called.”
“When I started college I
was like ‘oh, maybe I should
take this [stuff] seriously. I
was pursuing a Bachelor’s
of Arts, and I did cultural
studies, painting, and woodworking for a whole year.
Which was dope.”
@_berrykid_
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 9
Community
Comic utilizing public domain images. ISAAC HOLLANDSWORTH
Welcome to the
Public Domain
On Jan. 1, 2019, all books, movies,
photos and songs originally published
in the United States in 1923 entered the
public domain. On Jan. 1, 2020, the same
will happen to works published in 1924,
and so on. For this reason, January 1 is
dubbed Public Domain Day.
In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright
Extension Act (derisively referred to as
the “Mickey Mouse Act”) added twenty years of copyright protection to all
works created or published in the United States. The last Public Domain Day
happened was January 1, 1998, when
all works from 1922 were freed of their
copyright restrictions.
The public domain has no central database. The public domain is a concept;
when a work is no longer subject to
copyright protection, it is in the public
domain. Using a Creative Commons license, artists and content creators of all
kinds can enter their work into the public domain long before their copyright
would expire.
Copyright laws are super complicated
— with enough legal jargon to dissuade
anyone from fully understanding them.
But basically, by default, anything you
make — a photo taken on your iPhone
or a stick figure drawing — receives the
protection established by the Copyright
Act of 1976 and the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998.
The duration of protection those acts
provide works like this:
Works created from 1978 onwards receive copyright protection for the life of
the author plus 70 years.
Works created anonymously, under a
pseudonym, or by a corporation receive
95 years of protection from the date of
publication or 120 years of protection
from the date of creation, whichever
comes first.
Works created between 1964 and
1977 receive 95 years of protection (28
years plus an automatic renewal of 67
years).
Works created prior to 1964 receive
28 years of protection, with the option of
a 67 year renewal.
So, in actuality, many works from
1923 were already in the public domain
prior to New Years because the creators
did not renew their copyright protection. Unfortunately, just because a work
has entered the public domain does not
mean that it is readily accessible.
Unnecessarily long copyright laws
lead to orphan works: What The Center
For The Study of Public Domain at Duke
describes as works that are, “presumably
under copyright, but the copyright owner cannot be identified or located.” Archivists tend to steer clear of digitizing
or even restoring orphan works; fearing
they could face legal recourse. Duke University suspects that the majority of our
20th century cultural heritage consists of
orphan works. James Boyle, Professor at
Duke University tweeted that “We are
the first generation to deny our own culture to ourselves.”
In spite of these unfortunate facts, we
can still celebrate the tens of thousands
of works that entered the public domain
this year. This is significant. It means that
tens of thousands more works are now
available for artists to repurpose. As the
critic Northrop Frye once said, “Poetry
can only be made out of other poems,
novels out of other novels.” It means that
archivists and librarians can legally do
their job and preserve history for progeny. It means more transparency in our
legal system, and more affordable education for students when they can access
free books online. It means that we can
publish this edited photo of 1923 advertisements and photos from Washington.
More and more artists are licensing
their works under Creative Commons,
a set of licenses that enables lawful collaboration. The most restrictive license
within CC is called CC BY-NC-ND,
10 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
By
Jack Stroud
which means that others can download
the work and share it with others as
long as they credit the author. The least
restrictive license is called CC0, which
means that the work can be tweaked, remade or even used commercially, without
giving credit to the author--it means the
work is in the public domain.
The Creative Commons prevents the
phenomena of orphan works, it creates a
shared culture. Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Authors guild observes that,
“There comes a point when a creative
work belongs to history as much as to its
author and her heirs.” In the spirit of free
information, this photo, designed by Penelope Layne Jones and William
Elgin Seymour (we didn’t have to tell
you that), is licensed as aCC0. Do with it
what you will.
For readers interested in works entering the public domain, it will be helpful
to reiterate that the public domain is not
centralized. Documents in the public
domain can be accessed online through
sites operated by The Internet Archive,
The Library of Congress, Hathi Trust,
etc. The Copyright Act of 1976 dictates
that government records (with considerable acceptions) are to go into the public
domain, so your city hall has records in
the public domain as well. It’s not always
easy to find exactly what you’re looking
for, but the search is the fun part anyway.
Public Domain collage. BY PENELOPE LAYNE JONES AND WILLIAM ELGIN SEYMOUR
Community
Podcasters Dagny and Dae. COURTESY OF DAGNY AND DAE
&
UP
COMING
THU. JAN 24
5 Women Wearing The
Same Dress
7:30 p.m. , thru Jan. 26
Recital Hall
MON. JAN 28
Women’s Commission
Outreach Event
5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
Temple of Justice
THU. JAN 31
Climbing for Geoducks!
6 p.m. - 9 p.m.
CRC Bouldering Room
FRI. FEB 1
New Year, New Queer:
Living Ancestors
6 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Basically Misled
Recital Hall
THU. FEB 7
A podcast by Evergreen students
A&L Series Presents:
Winona Laduke
7:30 p.m. - 9:30 p.m., $5 for students
By DJ Pfeifle
Basically Misled is a podcast by two
Evergreen students that began in Sep.
23, 2018. Episodes are about an hour
long each, released every Wednesday.
The hosts, Dagny and Dae, have a good
sense of humor and a positive view of
Evergreen. They have experiences that
are very similar to typical college students: latching onto random people
that seem nice because you don’t have
friends, having trouble picking an academic focus, and good ‘ol fashioned
procrastination. The Podcast focuses on
Evergreen students, with some information specifically for freshmen. The
theme of the podcast is
“Advice”, but as Dagny says at the
beginning of every episode, “50 percent
is life changing, and 50 percent will
leave you crying in a stairwell by the
end of the day, you decide”. Basically
Misled is available on Spotify and YouTube.
The first thing you notice when
opening the spotify page is that every
single episode is labeled “Explicit”,
which is weird because it’s not very
naughty. The first episode has a sporadic start, but the following episodes
are funny and relatable. Topics include
roommates, majors, dating, professors,
and campus politics. One of the most
notable things they talk about is trying
to explain what you’re learning to other
people, because we all know that can be
a challenge.
Each episode follows a different
theme, and they adhere to each theme
pretty well, but tangents do happen on
occasion. One second, they’re talking
about the campus, then suddenly they’re discussing baby names and
hermit crabs. Episode themes include
“How To Be An Evergreen Student”,
“Friends & Enemies”, and many other episode titles that are hard to nail
down. If you know what “Don’t Live
With Frogs” means, more power to you.
But the rest of us will have to listen to
find out.
One of the best parts of the podcast
comes late in “How To Be An Evergreen Student 101” when they talk
about the Greenery. It seems that distaste with Greenery food is universal,
but they specifically emphasize that
you shouldn’t eat fries every single day.
Good to know that Dagny and Dae
care
about our health, but is any food in
the Greenery body safe? Clearly not
the salad bar, since Dagny apparently
SPSCC
knows three people that got food poisoning.
In “The Dating Game”, Dae recounts her experiences with dating,
which are pretty standard. Having a
“good time” while simultaneously being excited to leave, being yourself and
pushing people away as a result. Dagny
doesn’t do too well either, opting for
the method of “Hey, wanna go out?”
after being attracted to them for a long
time. Not to give anything away, but at
about 14 minutes in, that episode gets
really entertaining.
Basically Misled is a delightful podcast that is definitely worth an hour or
two of your time. The best jokes by far
are the inside jokes for Evergreen students, but most jokes apply to anyone
who’s been to college. Anyone can get
a good laugh from this podcast. Basically Misled is definitely worth at least
an hour of your time. Currently there
are eighteen episodes, so you can catch
up on the entire series in less than a
day if you binge nonstop. I would give
Basically Misled an A-, but Evergreen
does not have letter grades, so I’ll give
it 15.5/16 credits.
Trans Movie Night: MAJOR!
5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
SEAL
WRITERS’ ROOM
There are now six different
Writers’ Rooms this quarter to
respond to different interests
and affinity groups on campus.
Here they are:
SEAL: POC Writers’ Room
Mondays, Weeks 5, 8, 10
5 p.m. - 7 p.m.
SEAL: LGBTQIAA+
Writers’ Room
Mondays, Weeks 4, 6, 9
5 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Creative Writers’ Room
Tuesdays, Weeks 2 - 10
5 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Evals & Academic Statements
Wednesdays, Week 4 - 10
Wednseday, Evaluation Week
5 p.m. - 7 p.m.
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 11
Community
I NTE RSEX V OICE S
A T E VERGREEN
By MASON SOTO
In planning this article and asking for interviews, I wanted to showcase academic and activist work
that I saw happening in the communities around me. After the presidential memo in October that
attempted to redefine sex as immutable, biological, and binary, the need to uplift and engage with
intersex, trans, Two Spirit, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people seemed all the more urgent.
Thus, the following conversations with two intersex students are not about a singular experience, but
about who these students are and what they are up to, as well as their thoughts on language, theory,
beauty, survival, and more. Hopefully, these transcripts can open up chances for further recognition
and collaboration across our community. Look for the rest of these long convos in our next issues!
Augustine, who insisted on
mononymity (“like Cher or
Madonna”), is an Evergreen
student of writing. She is as
boisterous at times as she is
forbearing, and during our
talk, she gave herself just the
extra second between responses to ruminate on her words.
Where did you grow up?
L.A. I was there til the age of
nine. Then I moved up here, to
Everson, Washington, which is
a border town to Canada. And
then when I was 14, I moved to
the East Coast. I went to Boston and Providence. Warwick,
Rhode Island.
What brought you back here?
Family. They lived here. I
moved away because I was listening to a lot of Annie DiFranco, and I had to see some
stuff for myself. My mom got
cancer, and so I came back to
be with her. She is the most
elegant woman I’ve ever met.
The most linguistically wellversed person I’ve ever met.
Also the most tender person
I’ve ever met. She’s beautiful.
So, I got here. It was September when I officially moved
here. I would come to visit, but
I never lived in Olympia before.
How has your experience been
here and at Evergreen?
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. As someone who is terrified of provinciality and pedestrianism, it’s been making
me feel like I’m the stupidest
person alive — but what’s really brilliant is my engagement
with Olympia, with Evergreen.
Are you apart of any Intersex,
It’s nice to know that I can LGBTQIA+ communities?
sustain a sense of commitment.
All my friends.
I feel like a lot of people have
that experience here. Like, it reThat’s real. A lot of people in
ally does involve you. The city the community, and in general,
does, the school does. Okay, so let’s seem to conflate trans and intalk identity. I think this can be tersex, and I know we’ve talked
a troublesome question, but how some about how there is a strong
would you describe your identity? aff inity between the communities, but there’s difference. What
Ever in development. Beau- can you say about that? Has that
tiful, I would hope. My identity been an issue for you and what
is intersexed, and I think about do you wish people would underit in terms of molecular, bio- stand?
logical, chemistry, and there’s
— because of intersex-ionI wish people would take
ality, I don’t know if I could seriously their own semantics.
ever identity as something. I think, I am trans in the way
Like, the identifying factor, that, as an artist I am conit’s mixed. And therein lies my stantly in the process of transcommitment to marriage of mutation, and transfiguring,
both feminine, masculine, and and transforming, and yeah,
then I’m in the middle, molec- that’s our job, so to speak. We
ularly, biologically in the mid- raised our hand for the assigndle. And here I am existing in a ment.
realm that qualifies only binaBut semantically, when it
ry and duality. And here I am comes to identity, we’re just
without any necessary answers. trying to belong. It doesn’t
I think the identity is just de- matter. Like, identity doesn’t
velopment.
become a qualification. What
matters is that we just survive.
I like that. So what is import- That’s all that matters.
ant to you about talking about
that identity, and understanding
What are some issues you’re
it and its intersections.
passionate about right now?
It’s important because it’s
survival. The importance of development is that we can come
to conclusions, we can come to
an idea of something, but what
matters first and foremost
is that we belong. Identity,
there’s — if definition is saying when something is found,
I haven’t found it yet. But I am
seeking it. And that seeking of
definition, I think deserves to
survive.
12 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
Rest. Survival. Not going
the way of Virginia Woolf. I
think because this world —
you think about the implementation of patriarchy and white
supremacy and colonialism,
and you think about how, they
don’t want us to exist. And we
have to wake up every day and
go against that brutality. So,
when I’m passionate, in terms
of survival, I mean, it’s just surviving. And that’s all it is.
Jonathan Leggette is a student of many subjects, who
was honored with the Equity
Award last year for his activism. He has traveled around
the country to advocate for
intersex people, and his candid
and lively social media presence keeps me alive. He’s a bit
more shy in person, though
just as charming.
I saw you have family in the
South, and I’m a southern girl
myself. Tell me about your family
and growing up there.
In the South, it’s a mess, let
me tell you. I lived down there
only for three years, but in my
later years, which is nice because I kind of knew who I was
already. It was just me actually
connecting with my family for
the first time, in Mississippi.
In the Bible Belt, deep. So I
got to meet them for the first
time when I was 17 or 18.
I’m the youngest that my
dad has, but I’m the only person that ever went down south
to meet our family. Going
down there and creating that
bridge was super cool, I have
like 450 family members down
there. It was really important
for me to go down there in a
sense to learn about who I am.
My dad would always say
we are Creole, which checks
out. And my family is Haitian and Dominican, and then
learning my family history
about them actually immigrating here a couple generations
before. Okay, I say immigrate
in the nice terms. They were on
the last slave ship here.
My family is extremely religious. There’s a church that
is behind my grandma’s house,
and my whole family is the
whole congregation, the pastor, the choir, everything about
the church. So it’s crazy, big
family, very religious. Dark
skin, all of them, I’m one of the
lightest skinned family members I’ve ever had.
That’s so amazing that you’ve
went back there. What brought
you to Evergreen?
I didn’t know Evergreen
existed. I grew up in Seattle
and graduated high school in
Federal Way and I had never
heard of Evergreen in my life.
I actually, in high school, was
homeless and supporting a
household that I didn’t live in
to make sure my nephew was
okay, and so I was just working and then I went to Seattle
Central and did some classes
there. I had a teacher, she like
kept me alive, fed me, got me
clothes. And she was like, you
need to apply to Evergreen.
‘You’re smart, you’re intelligent, I want you to get a degree.’ She kept pushing and
pushing and finally I was like,
sure. Two weeks before school
started, applied. Got in, and
then I moved in the week after.
Didn’t know anything about
this campus, and hearing the
no grades thing and stuff like
that was great. I had a 1.98
GPA graduating high school
from being homeless, not going to school, making money
how I needed to. But then having a 4.0 GPA in community
college, people are like what
happened? Well, obviously it’s
not about my care of school,
it’s about circumstances that I
can’t control.
Evergreen being as open as
it was, and kind of just being
pushed onto me in a sense,
‘Just go, you’ll fit in perfectly
here,’ I was like, why not. So
here I am.
You’ve traveled a lot in the
past couple years for conferences
and different events and things.
What were some of the most inspiring moments for you through
that?
My first conference, first
ever time speaking about being
intersex, and being open about
it was at Creating Change in
Philly in 2016. And that was
like, crazy. It was mind blowing, so inspiring because I had
never thought that my story
could impact people, impact
change. I got to be on a panel
with three other intersex youth
and we got to tell our stories
and field questions, and it was
insane because I just never
thought I would have a chance
to do that, and knowing that
telling my story meant a lot
to other people, and possibly
helped a lot of intersex youth
was crazy. And a non-profit
giving me a chance when I had
only been with them for two
months.
I got to talk to people from
around the country that ranged
from professors, staff members, lawyers, everybody was
in that room. At the end I got
numbers, people got my email,
and I actually helped to shape
curriculum for high school and
college students.
These convos will continue
next issue issue.
Column & Arts
Calla Mav
A new column where we
ask folks at this school an uncomfortable question and
publish the answers. We hope that sharing those less-talkedabout things here, with each other, can be cathartic.
Be warned, some content may be triggering.
Because I was so
Email us potential questions!
shitfaced.
artist interview by
Brittanyana Pierro
Calla Mav (also known as @_berrykid_
on Instagram) is a local artist and recent
Evergreen dropee, based here in Olympia,
Washington. With an IG bio reading ‘Princess Peach Fanartist’ and a significant 22.3k
followers/fanbase, Mav’s inspiration, career,
Arash,
Senior
and success are displayed online for the inThe scene where
I was watching this
ternet to see.
everyone died in
Because I was
Though growing up art was always just
video where these ducks
Infinity War.
feeling
lonely.
a
pastime
for Mav, in recent years it has
were running down the
become
a
staple
of their livelihood. While
Becky, Freshman
street and their feet were
Cyn, Freshman
attending
Evergreen,
they explored a varislapping against the paveety of arts, straying away from their usual
ment and it was so cute I
mediums of creation. This exploration led
About my daughter leaving for
just teared up.
them to the realm of Instagram, where they
New Mexico. I’m really gonna miss her.
are now a well-known artist in the ‘cute art’
Aife, Senior
Allison,
community.
Public Relations
“When I started college I was like ‘oh,
Because my dog
To a really sad song. 6
maybe I should take this [stuff ] seriously. I
Manager
was barking too
was pursuing a Bachelor’s of Arts, and I did
o’clock by BOL4. I cry a lot
cultural studies, painting, and woodworking
loudly.
though. That’s the last thing
for a whole year. Which was dope.” Mav
I can remember.
Alia, Senior
said.
During their time in woodworking, they
Shae, Sophomore
When my cousended up creating one of the biggest pieces
of their career: a giant twin size sculpture inin got into a bus
spired by the I Spy children’s books.
accident, it really
Because I
“I did a sculpture at the end of the year
scared me.
drank a soda
that was like, loosely I Spy based, but it was
too quickly.
like a trauma map. The platform was the size
Aliyah,
of a twin bed, and then I had a blanket and a
Fres hman
Hali,
pillow next to it where I could lay down with
Sophomore
the piece. It was large and definitely like
Either the possibility
100+ hours of work over 8 weeks… People
would walk in on me in the workroom and
of my mom’s cysts turning
be like ‘ have u had a break’ and I’d just be
into cancer. Obviously I’m
I don’t know the time, but I
like crying. Not even necessarily because of
really hoping that doesn’t
practice something called deep lissubject matter but because I was so fucking
happen. Or maybe it was
tening, meaning listening to not just
tired.”
A Walk To Remember,
what the person says, but what their
The pictures of that piece are featured on
because that movie makes
intent was and what their underlyMav’s Instagram page where they advertise
me cry every time.
ing commitment is. And sometimes
and sell most of their art.
they”ve never felt heard on that level
Mav’s internet success has led them to a
Kaisha, Freshman
variety of relationships and job opportuniand they’ll start crying. And that
ties. However, their unique sense of inspiraalways make me cry.
Last night, about kids on the
tion is to credit for their success.
border getting tear-gassed and
Louis, Senior
“I just like to draw babes.” Mav said “I
forced to stay in those prison camps
frequent bikini baristas and I used to draw
in Texas.
A few days ago,
a bunch of my favorite girls... They’re always
about the atrocities
really happy to see, not-old-business-dudes.”
Jean, Academic
One of the relationships Mav has fosthat animals are going
Advisor
tered
on their drawing career is with Aly
through every day in
Kay
@baby_doll_aly,
a former bikini barista
slaughterhouses.
Watching the video for Where’s The
and current car detailer/model whom Mav
Love? by the Black Eyed Peas, when evdid a drawing of, leading to a collaboration
Sady, Senior
eryone was chasing the car. I just like can’t
between the two popular pages.
stand when a bunch of people come in and
“I made a drawing of her and she did
About my
all do the same thing for a good cause. I cry
a look based off of my art, which was very
dad. He’s just not
every time. I’m crying right now, talking
meta.” Aly Kay is currently rebuilding her
doing well.
Instagram following, after her old account
about it.
was taken down for unknown reasons, posWendy,
The
last time
I cried was...
Vice Provost
Isaac, Junior
AKA
BERRY KID
sibly related to her being an adult performer.
Another interesting relationship Mav
has fostered through Instagram is with a
woman named Helli, who they consider to
be somewhat of a surrogate mom.
“I have a lot of internet friends that’ll visit or keep in contact, and it’s a lot of fun. I
have an honorary mom that’s gonna come
visit me soon.” Mav said “I put out an ISO
[saying] ‘Does anyone have a nice mom that
I can just talk to a lot?’ So, I got one! Her
names Helli. She’s from San Francisco. She
mainly just talks to me about her ‘not-boyfriend’ boyfriends, but it”s good.” Mav went
on to explain “I have a very specific kind of
internet fame, which is in the ‘cute art’ community, so-called. And it’s basically all super
nice 12-23-year-olds. So, I just have all of
these consistently sweet people that will
send me messages. I’m also super open online so people [feel like they know me.] It’s
a lot of fun.”
Mav’s Instagram success has given them
the opportunity to make their art and their
career synonymous. As well as become their
own boss, and schedule their own hours.
“I can get a lot of commissions because of
[Instagram]. So I’ve been funemployed for a
year and a half because of it, which is really
dope.”
The flexibility they gained from having a
career on Instagram gave them the leeway to
leave Evergreen, and still support themselves
fully. So, Fall quarter of 2018, they decided to
drop out of school and pursue a career in art
professionally.
“I was like ‘I wanna drop out to be a better friend, and have more time to do things’,”
Mav said, “And [now] I’m able to be there for
people during the day and then I just work
on art stuff throughout the night.”
Before becoming a full-time artist, Mav
worked a variety of retail and service jobs,
that were not full time or fulfilling.
“Working entry-level jobs in Olympia
fucking sucks. There’s a lot of creepy dudes
everywhere. Management included. So I’m
[happy] I don’t have to do that anymore.”
Mav has commissions open on their Instagram page at all times but also sells their
artwork at local anime conventions. Some
of the events Calla Mav will be vending at
are Sakura-Con in Seattle on April 19-21,
Kumoricon in Portland on Nov 15-17, and
Chibi Chibi Con here at Evergreen on February 9th.
IG:_berrykid_ Twitter:berrykidart
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 13
Letters & Opinion
By REBECCA CANRIGHT
By PAMELA RONSON
With the harvests winding down and the winter season upon us,
it’s time to celebrate our commitment to food justice this year! Did
you know that a partnership between the Students for Food Security, the Food Systems Working Group, the Organic Farm, and the
Clean Energy Committee created $8,500 worth in grant subsidies
for students, both graduate and undergraduate, to be able to purchase farm produce at the Market Stand on Red Square at a 50%
discount? Because of this subsidy, beginning in the spring of 2018
and lasting until the end of fall 2018, the Organic Farm observed
an uptick in student customers at the register, estimated at around
8 out of every 10 customers, versus the year 2017 where student
customers were observed at around 2 out of every 10. Equitable access to organic, sustainable, locally-produced, nutrient-dense food
was made possible to more students through this grant and we love
that it’s now fully funded for Spring 2019.
What made this grant even more accessible at the Market Stand
was the collaboration between the Greener Bookstore and the Organic Farm sharing the use of a mobile credit card reader; in this
way, students, staff, and faculty who cannot currently access cash
from the campus ATMs can still purchase farm produce using a
credit/debit card. Plus, students can still access the 50% food subsidy discount through credit/debit card purchases. After analyzing
reports, it’s exciting to note a $4,167.14 increase in total credit
card sales for the Organic Farm, averaging out to $189 per market!
44% of this total, or $1,833.54, were student credit card purchases.
Hopefully, next year we’ll be able to
track student cash purchases with a new register system.
This is history in the making! We’re experiencing the benefits of
our commitment to food justice, food equity, and food security on
campus. By creating avenues for local, sustainable, accessible, and
affordable food on campus, we’re currently in the process of building a more closed-loop food system.
Next up on the agenda is to mobilize grassroots support for bill
passage allowing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
(SNAP) benefits in the form of an Electronic Benefit Transfer
(EBT) debit cards to be used on campus. If the bill passes in early
February, this will mean that anyone with an EBT card can purchase organic farm produce from the Market on Red Square, as
well as select food items from the Greener Bookstore, P.O.D. market, Einstein’s, The Greenery, etc., with their EBT card. We’ll be
talking to legislators at the capitol in January! To find out more, or
how to support and get involved with these efforts, please contact
Pamela Ronson at plronson@gmail.com, chair of the Food Systems Working Group, a student-led group on campus.
14 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
I am impressed by scientific studies that revealed the social complexity of farm animals. For example, pigs share many
abilities (like facial recognition) with our beloved companion dogs. Mother cows form deep emotional bonds with their
young (just like human babies’ love of their mothers), and are
traumatized by separation from them.
Practicing compassion for all animals makes sense. is easy,
satisfying and necessary if we hope to create a kinder world
for everyone.
I encourage us all to opt for more plant-centric meals for
the happiness of animals, humanity and the planet.
The amount of water and energy needed to produce one
pound of grain pales in comparison to one pound of beef.
Dairy products are similarly energy-intensive. By reducing our
consumption of animal products, we are saving energy, water
and land, because grazing animals for meat or milk demands
a significant amount of space. Plant calories can be grown in
much denser quantities than animal calories, without any risk
of inhumane treatment.
Additionally, many medical experts are singing the praises
of plant-centric diets for their ability to prevent and reverse
various diseases. Let’s choose plants and rejoice in helping
Earth, our fellow creatures and ourselves, friends. Thanks.
Comix & Horoscopes
This week we’re sharing
what each sign would be
if it was a color!
January 20-26
FIRE SIGNS
But we print in black
and white, so use your
imagination.
Week 1
Week 2
By MARIAH G UILFOIL-DOVE L
Aries: SCARLET
Aries: SCARLET
(March 21 - April 20)
Aries is a FIRE sign, but I didn’t have to tell you that. You do
all things with passion, whether it’s blocking some B on social
media in half a second because they looked at you weird or it’s
giving the best speech anyone has ever heard at a wedding. You
go full out with all you do. Just like this jewel tone of red, you are
a jewel to the world. Your color is scarlet.
(March 21 - April 20)
Keep being your bold, beautiful, and bootyful self this week.
Don’t let anyone try to minimize you or tell you to shrink yourself. With anyone who tells you “you’re too much,” simply remember, “Maybe they aren’t enough.”
Leo: SUNSHINE YELLOW
(July 23- August 21)
Leos don’t shy away from the spotlight, in fact they thrive in it!
So thrive in your color sunshine yellow! Bask in all the golden
glory.
Sagittarius: SUNSET PEACH
(November 23 - December 22)
Just like the cheeky peach emoji you are versatile and can mean
different things. Your vibrant yet reckless effervescent charm
means people love you, just like a peach.
AIR SIGNS
Leo: SUNSHINE YELLOW
(July 23- August 21)
How was all that basking? Have you been soaking up that
vitamin ME. Loving yourself when done properly is a gift to
yourself and the world. You are the only you in the galaxy, don’t
let anyone else dull your sparkle just because they never learn
to shine themselves.
Sagittarius: SUNSET PEACH
(November 23 - December 22)
How are those peachy vibes working out for you? I hope you’ve
been living up to your fullest potential. BIG reminder though
you can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there’s
still going to be somebody who hates peaches.
Libra: MINT
Libra: MINT
(September 24 - October 23)
That sweet mix of green and blue that gets people immediately
thinking how they can set up an etsy store and start pinteresting
away to their hearts content. It really is such an “in” color right
now. As a Libra, you work hard and appreciate making money,
which is why this air sign is blue but has the most green tint to
you. Because you are a sophisticated member of society and as
Erika Jayne says “it’s exxxpensive to be me.”
(September 24 - October 23)
Speaking of exxxpensive taste, Erika Jayne might spend 40
grand a month on her glam squad but you better work to make
sure you aren’t (qt least not yet). Set up a savings account and
actually PUT your SAVINGS in there. Don’t just use it to
transfer money to your checking. If you ABSOLUTELY must
have that new bag, watch, pet shark, whatever just ask your sugar daddy to pay for it. It’s what they’re there for.
(January 21 - February 19)
The blue that makes people stop and say “wow have you SEEN
the sky today it is SO blue”
As an Aquarius you know how to stop people in their tracks. You
love being known for your unique and unconventional ways. You
probably are thinking about dying your hair blue right now. PRO
TIP don’t. The upkeep is too much and you’ll never get your hair
back to where you want it.
(January 21 - February 19)
I’m serious don’t dye your hair. It’s gonna break and the only
thing you should be breaking are all those personal records you
set for yourself. Keep working hard and don’t get distracted by
all the things flying your way. Just bob and weave.
Aquarius: BOLD BLUE
Gemini: SWIRL
(May 22 - June 21)
Now hear me out with this one, your high energy and driven persona mixed with that underlying insecurity and desire to please
people is what earns the Gemini the symbol of The Twins. Naturally this means you can’t be boxed into just one color. You’re the
colors swirling together to make something more beautiful than
they ever could be on their own.
WATER SIGNS
Cancer: SILVER
(June 22 - July 22)
Cancers are ruled by the moon, so naturally silver is your color. Think of the way the moon reflects over the water in the
middle of the night in the Puget Sound. It’s an eerie and
magical experience. Channel that energy this week, walk with
your head held high. You know that the world has big things
for you.
Scorpio: PURPLE
(October 24 - November 22)
Anytime you want to increase your natural charm put on any
shade of purple that catches your eye.
Pisces: MILLINNIEAL PINK
by Issac
Jan. 27- Feb. 2
(February 20 - March 20)
Oooh baby you scored in the colors department. Millennial
pink is so in and it’s never going out of style. It’s not just for
baby girls anymore, pink is everyone’s color now! But Pisces
shine in pink. Maybe it’s the double alliteration. Famous Pisces include Albert Einstein and our first president George
Washington! Can’t you just see those dudes rocking pink!??
Afterall we only have paintings of GW and they very well
could have made up that he was wearing a black coat, I’m
pretty confident it was actually pink.
EARTH SIGNS
Capricorn: KHAKI
(December 23 - January 20)
Talk about an EARTH SIGN, you are brown like the earth
but you’re khaki because you’re a business B who’s here to
get stuff done.
Taurus: WEED GREEN
(April 21 - May 21)
You know the hard-to-describe color of weed when it’s just
a harmless plant and no one has violently set it on fire to
use for their own selfish desires? The pretty green leaves that
somehow just from the look you know are gonna smell funny?
That oddly legal yet also illegal color? Yeah that’s all you Taurus.
Virgo: BLACK
(August 22 - September 23)
Cus baby you look good in black, black can be chic and
sophisticated or go goth meets punk and become an edgy
dream. Whether it’s vegan leather black jacket or a deep V
LBD wear black and you’ll be shining so much you’ll think
you’re wearing white.
Aquarius: BOLD BLUE
Gemini: SWIRL
(May 22 - June 21)
In the spirit of the swirl, mix things up this week. Talk to people you wouldn’t normally. Go get coffee at a spot you’ve never
been. Beauty is found when we mixed together things that before were known as taboo. The person who created the bacon on
a donut craze might have been shunned for their odd creation
but we all known the world is better off because of it.
Cancer: SILVER
(June 22 - July 22)
Continue the magic this week, stay in white, grays and silvers. Dark colors are no good for you right now. Optimize
your evenings, create art at midnight and write poems before
you fall asleep. If you’re wondering why your creativity isn’t
flowing in the day, it’s because you were meant to connect
with the moonlight that dances over the water.
Scorpio: PURPLE
(October 24 - November 22)
Being Scorpio is hard work, your ruling planet is Pluto
which is technically not a planet anymore so if you’re feeling
restless it makes total sense. But that’s not the only reason
it’s difficult to be you. You are always in demand and people
love to be around you. Saying yes to those people and new
opportunities will serve you well in this season.
Pisces: MILLINNIEAL PINK
(February 20 - March 20)
Your gentle and wise demeanor can attract unhealthy people into your life. Instead of being afraid of rejection and
hurting their feelings use this week as a chance to develop
stronger personal boundaries in your life.
Capricorn: KHAKI
(December 23 - January 20)
We all know you can be headstrong but don’t let that stop
you from following your heart this week! You won’t want to
but trust me, following your heart this week is exactly what
the doctor ordered.
Taurus: WEED GREEN
(April 21 - May 21)
You need to stop being such a forking weirdo and let that
person go. You know the one who you wanted to spend
the rest of your life with but you actually don’t know anything about them. You claim to be so down to earth but
for an earth sign you haven’t been acting very “earthy”.
Watch Frozen again and take Elsa’s advice and Let them
Gooooooooooooo.
Virgo: BLACK
(August 22 - September 23)
You are so smart and handsome and everyone loves you.
Don’t let it go to your head. Virgos pride themselves on being above such things and pretend that they don’t love the
attention. Stay strong bro and don’t give in. Just because a
person compliments you doesn’t mean they’ll be a positive
additive to your life. Be selective on who you’re giving your
time, talents, and gifts to.
JANUARY 23, 2019 / THE COOPER POINT JOURNAL 15
16 WWW.COOPERPOINTJOURNAL.COM
cpj_20190123.pdf